A hearing to determine whether a Hemet man will be tried on charges that he committed dozens of armed robberies throughout Riverside County commenced Friday with testimony from employees of shops he is alleged to have held up in Moreno Valley and Menifee.

The preliminary hearing in the courtroom of Judge Mark Mandio at Southwest Justice Center is expected to stretch over weeks because it is being conducted only on Fridays and it will cover 54 counts stemming from 16 robberies allegedly committed by Sergio Nicolas Lopez.

Yet those are only a fraction of the charges the 31-year-old defendant faces. The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office has filed 266 felony charges against Lopez, including armed robbery, burglary, false imprisonment and carjacking, stemming from nearly 80 robberies that authorities have linked to Lopez — many of which occurred in Temecula, Murrieta and Hemet.

Authorities believe Lopez, an admitted gang member who was convicted as a juvenile of attempted murder, is the suspect they dubbed the Sweet & Stylin’ Bandit. The moniker comes from the robber’s penchant for sticking up small businesses such as juice bars and hair salons.

Because of the extreme number of charges, the District Attorney’s Office decided to present the case for only some of the counts at the preliminary hearing, while packaging the rest into another case that would be considered for prosecution later.

Even so, Lopez could easily spend life in prison if convicted of the charges now taken to court, said Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Garcia.

On Friday, Garcia called to the stand two employees at a Moreno Valley beauty supply shop and the employee of a Menifee hair salon, both of which were robbed in December 2010.

During the Moreno Valley incident, witness Mechelle Gonzalez said, she and another employee were in the shop toward the end of the work day when a man wearing a ski mask, black sweatshirt with a hood, black baggy pants and white athletic shoes entered and pointed a handgun at her.

“I was nervous, you know, so I was doing whatever he was telling me,” Gonzalez said.

So when he told her to open the register and put money in a bag, she complied, she said.

The bandit also commanded the other employee to open the store’s safe. When she couldn’t get the safe open, the man ordered the two workers to go into the restroom and stay there, after which he left by the back door. He got away with several hundred dollars from the store, plus $500 he stole from Gonzalez’s purse, she said.

Both described the robber as having light-colored eyes and light skin and being in his mid-20s to early 30s, while one said he had a scar between his eyes.

Lopez’s defense attorney Stephen Allen questioned both witnesses on their memories of his appearance and actions.

A few days after the Moreno Valley holdup, Penny Martinez and a colleague were preparing to shut down the hair-trimming shop in Menifee where they worked when a man wearing a ski mask and holding a gun entered. He ordered them to shut the door and give him the shop’s money, Martinez said.

Her description of the robber’s appearance corresponded with what the Moreno Valley witnesses said, except she described his eyes as hazel and she didn’t notice a scar.

She acknowledged, however, that she was crying and stricken with fear.

“It was horrifying,” she said.

As in the other incident, the man ordered them into the bathroom and was about to close the door when, Martinez said, she blurted out, “Merry Christmas to you, too.”

Although he ignored her and left with the money, perhaps the statement was unwittingly prophetic.

When investigators took Lopez into custody in May 2011 in Indio, they arrested him on Fred Waring Drive. Popular recordings of holiday songs performed by Waring, a mid-20th-century bandleader, made his name nearly synonymous with Christmas.